Am I the only one pissed off by the SNP?

[Richard Hakluyt]

One other factor, in these ideology-lite days, is that incumbent MPs can have more of an advantage/disadvantage than in the old days of the two-party system.

What do you mean by this, exactly?

The personal vote, for or against an individual, is much greater than it was in the past. Back in the 60s and 70s it was insisted that a personal vote could only be +1000 at max, but that was in the days of ideological confrontation, there were few floating voters and we had a genuine socialist party vs a genuine conservative party. Nowadays there are merely different styles of management on offer, floating voters are vastly greater in number, and the potential for an individual MP to build up a following via sterling work/character is greater.
(speaking solely about the UK of course)

[Sheilbh]

I'd add that the party identity within Parliament seems to have been collapsing. We have this myth of politicians being better and more honest in the 50s but the truth is that was a time when any rebellion was extremely unlikely. This current Parliament has had the most and the most substantial revolts in the modern era, before this one was the 2005 Parliament.

Lots of MPs, especially recent ones, don't seem so interested in climbing the greasy pole and are far more likely to rebel and to define themselves against their party.

Ironically it may have the opposite effect of the US where it seems like people break the party line to work together and it's more a thing centrists do. Here in the Tory party for example most MPs in marginal seats are loyalists. They know that voters don't like disunited parties and they don't like parties that seem more interested in their own fights than in government. The MPs in safe seats are more likely to rebel to pressure the government to take a more Eurosceptic/anti-immigration/austerity line.

I think it's more to do with the decline of class identity than ideology. I think the 70s and the 80s was the only time of really very significant ideological choice. I'm not sure lots of people saw the Tories of MacMillan, Heath and Churchill as a genuine conservative party - but they were the conservative party and they were the party for the middle class.

Of course they care about the North of England, lots of marginal constituencies up there.

Not so much. The Tories have a few safe seats in the North - Cheshire and Yorkshire especially - and a couple of marginals but it's really not their territory. They don't have a single seat in any of the big cities of the North: Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford or Newcastle. The Tories have two seats in the North-East (both are marginal) and one in Merseyside (again marginal). The won 12% less of the vote in the North than the rest of England and about 40% of people in the North say they'd never vote Tory.

The marginal seats that'll win the election are largely in the Midlands. The situation of the Tories kind of reminds me of the Liberals in the Gladstone era. They're still strong enough to win but you feel they're retreating to a geographical base. So the Liberals became the party of non-Conformists and the Celtic fringe. The Tories have vacated Scotland, the North and Wales (many of the SNP heartlands used to be safe Tory seats) and both urban areas and areas with large minority electorates. They seem to be becoming an increasingly South-Eastern party. It should be something that worries them.

Edit: Not so much that they're not winning everywhere but that they don't really seem to be speaking to the whole country.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The tories don't speak to me Sheilbh, and I must have clocked up 20 years living in London, Brighton and rural Suffolk. Made enough money to be comfortable too, should be a natural for them.

Not that the Labour party are any better of course, being a "Labour" party and hating the working class is not really a good way of going about things 

[Valmy]

Who do the Tories speak to?

[Maladict]

England and Wales better get dredging some deep harbours and getting UN nuclear storage safety inspectors in pronto, otherwise the first time the Trident subs come in for a refit after the vote they won't have anywhere to go.

I think they generally come in while surfaced.

[PDH]

England and Wales better get dredging some deep harbours and getting UN nuclear storage safety inspectors in pronto, otherwise the first time the Trident subs come in for a refit after the vote they won't have anywhere to go.

I think they generally come in while surfaced.

Not Gunther Prien

[Sheilbh]

Who do the Tories speak to?

No-one really. All politicians are hated and generally often deservedly so. I don't understand how we've ended up with a professional political class who seem really, really bad at politics

But I think the Tories are in danger of becoming a regional party. It's something to do with the tone and the message, perhaps. I was thinking of Jenkins' biography of Gladstone. It seems like Gladstone's vehemence and moral certainty played very well with some voters but in it was perhaps the seeds of decline in the more relaxed and latitudinarian Home Counties (and Villa Conservatism was there to take the place of the Whigs).

I think a Tory party with Cameron, Osborne and Boris as their most prominent figures doesn't translate in large parts of the country.

[Valmy]

There are people in the UK who really like the Tories right?  It just seems like I rarely hear from any of them.

[derspiess]

There are people in the UK who really like the Tories right?  It just seems like I rarely hear from any of them.

No shit.  Only two examples are TopCat and my friend's wife who in the last election said she'd probably vote Conservative.

[Capetan Mihali]

They don't have a single seat in any of the big cities of the North: Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford or Newcastle.

How do they do in the cities of the South and Midlands?  Are they big in London, or just in the Home Counties/rest of the Southeast?  The US is increasingly splitting on an urban/suburban vs. rural/exurban axis, I think, and I wonder if the same is going on in the UK or other European countries.

[Sheilbh]

There are people in the UK who really like the Tories right?  It just seems like I rarely hear from any of them.

Most of this could go for Labour or the Lib Dems as well.

But Tory party membership has halved since Cameron took over. Their brand is still very toxic in the North, Wales and Scotland (though I think the Scottish Tories are beginning to recover, which is good). The current leadership is largely Tories from 1997-2010, so they're from Tory heartlands (much like Labour was full of Scots and Welsh until Blair) which means they face the same sort of problems Neil Kinnock would in the South-East.

Add into that that for various reasons the traditional Tory press really seem to have it in for David Cameron and the impression I get is that no-one really likes them. Even people I know who do like the Tories or are broadly supportive of Cameron routinely despair at the competence of number 10.

British politics is shit at the minute because of how poor all of the options look. But at the same time we're in a coalition which is weird. All the mainstream parties are insanely unpopular, which is weird. And we could soon have four party politics, which is weird. It's febrile and boring at the same time

[Valmy]

Their brand is still very toxic in the North, Wales and Scotland (though I think the Scottish Tories are beginning to recover, which is good).

Interesting.  I thought one of the big drives in the independence referendum was to escape the tyrannical Tory rule and ensure benevolent indefinite SNP powah.

[Valmy]

British politics is shit at the minute because of how poor all of the options look. But at the same time we're in a coalition which is weird. All the mainstream parties are insanely unpopular, which is weird. And we could soon have four party politics, which is weird. It's febrile and boring at the same time

Now you know how Americans feel.  At least your system can make new parties.

[derspiess]

I don't think UKIP will do as well as a lot of people seem to be projecting.

[Sheilbh]

How do they do in the cities of the South and Midlands?  Are they big in London, or just in the Home Counties/rest of the Southeast?  The US is increasingly splitting on an urban/suburban vs. rural/exurban axis, I think, and I wonder if the same is going on in the UK or other European countries.

They do okay in London. London's got about 70 MPs and in 2010 the Tories won roughly 30 or so. They do well in rich inner London like the City, Chelsea and Westminster and in the leafier suburbs like Richmond but also the outer boroughs that are heading towards Essex or Kent.

In the South-East I think they generally do fine. They have MPs in Reading, Swindon, Portsmouth, Southampton, Brighton and Hove even out in Bristol in the South-West.

They do less well in big university areas which have largely gone Lib Dem, though that may change now. They do very badly in constituencies with a large minority community.

They struggle a lot more in cities in the Midlands. There's 80 rural seats in the Midlands and North and the Tories have about 60 of them, but there's about 125 urban seats and the Tories only have 20. So I think they've got 1 seat in Birmingham.